Photo Editor

[Tony Parsons]

The OP has not been with us since Dec 2019, so I fear any further advice will not be seen.

[philip_dygeus2]

Here's a film photographer's and Mac user's perspective.

 

I scan my 35mm and 120 film using Vuescan for my CS9000 and FlexColor for my X1, but I don't do any editing in those apps which are only set up to give me the flattest possible scan. Colour negative scans are inverted using ColorPerfect in Photoshop. Then I do most of my image editing (regardless of emulsion type) in Adobe Camera Raw which I have found over the years to be truly excellent for colour correcting. I use Photoshop for dust spotting, resizing and printing, and occasionally for other image corrections. I've described my workflow here (though it doesn't include the Flextight workflow, but it doesn't differ much).

 

I also refuse to join Adobe's subscription culture. I'm using CS6 which I bought a number of years ago and run on my 12 year old 8-core Mac Pro. Until recently it ran El Capitan which was the latest supported system but I have now upgraded it to High Sierra. Apart from possible hardware faults down the line (and so far I've only suffered bad RAM sticks and a broken GPU) I don't expect there to be any problems continuing with this setup. The computer is solid as a rock and by now upgraded with all sorts of stuff inside to run well enough for my needs. Depending on one's needs it is perfectly possible to run both old software and new OS:es on older Macs. My 7-year old MacBook Pro is running Mojave (but can run both Catalina and upcoming Big Sur) and CS6.

 

I also agree that I don't miss any new features in Photoshop. I have everything I need and then some in CS6. Seeing how Adobe tries to tout new and improved features reminds me of the truly ridiculous upgrade hysteria that so many digital photographers have to suffer. The tiniest little changes instills doubt and fear of missing out. I'm so happy I am not part of either.

 

Cheers

Philip

 

I would be SOL only if I were running an Apple machine. I am running Windows (as I wrote in my post above) on hardware I put together. I have both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Photoshop CS 5 running on my 10-year old computer (an Intel i7-860 on a Gigabyte P55 motherboard) under Windows 7 SP1 x64. Of course Lightroom 6 is 64-bit. Shortly after I receive my new motherboard (an ASUS AMD 570 based board), which is on backorder almost everywhere, both Photoshop and Lightroom will be running on a Ryzen 7 3800X under Windows 10 1909 64-bit version. I do not expect any problems.

 

I believe Microsoft, unlike Apple, took to heart a lesson I.B.M. learned in the late 1960's. When they came out with System 360, in the late 1960's I.B.M. promised customers that code - object code, the complied binaries - that ran on the first 360's would run on all subsequent 360's and later 370's. And for the most part it did. Code compiled and linked in 1969 ran on machines in 1990 without needing to be recompiled or relinked. It is one of the reasons businesses flocked to I.B.M. I suspect Microsoft is trying to do the same with Windows 10.

 

True, I am missing some new features. Do I miss them? No, I do not think so. I can do everything I want with what I have. I am happy with my images. So unless, for some odd reason, I just have to have the latest and greatest, that $2900 stays in my bank account plus the money I saved by not paying $120 per year. If I ever absolutely need the latest and greatest, I can always start a subscription. Until then, I am content, and Adobe seem to be eking out a profit without my contribution. ;)

[frankmercer]

PS CS6 most of the time.

Lightroom some of the time, I use Lightroom mainly for Camera RAW and to organize my photos.

[carbon_dragon]

Historically Photoshop CS3 but lately, I've been trying to transition to Affinity Photo.

[joseph_smith3]

I use the free Nikon software: Nikon View NX-i, and Nikon Capture NX-D; DXO Photo lab 3, Elite edition , and the NIK Collection 3 set of plugins.

[michaellinder]

Photoshop Elements 2020 and the NIK bundle

[sigmaalex920]

I would be SOL only if I were running an Apple machine. I am running Windows (as I wrote in my post above) on hardware I put together. I have both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Photoshop CS 5 running on my 10-year old computer (an Intel i7-860 on a Gigabyte P55 motherboard) under Windows 7 SP1 x64. Of course Lightroom 6 is 64-bit. Shortly after I receive my new motherboard (an ASUS AMD 570 based board), which is on backorder almost everywhere, both Photoshop and Lightroom will be running on a Ryzen 7 3800X under Windows 10 1909 64-bit version. I do not expect any problems.

 

I believe Microsoft, unlike Apple, took to heart a lesson I.B.M. learned in the late 1960's. When they came out with System 360, in the late 1960's I.B.M. promised customers that code - object code, the complied binaries - that ran on the first 360's would run on all subsequent 360's and later 370's. And for the most part it did. Code compiled and linked in 1969 ran on machines in 1990 without needing to be recompiled or relinked. It is one of the reasons businesses flocked to I.B.M. I suspect Microsoft is trying to do the same with Windows 10.

 

True, I am missing some new features. Do I miss them? No, I do not think so. I can do everything I want with what I have. I am happy with my images. So unless, for some odd reason, I just have to have the latest and greatest, that $2900 stays in my bank account plus the money I saved by not paying $120 per year. If I ever absolutely need the latest and greatest, I can always start a subscription. Until then, I am content, and Adobe seem to be eking out a profit without my contribution. ;)

Adobe, like almost all software sellers, has only done cosmetic changes for years to market just another upgrade. Going to the cloud and taking away hard copy/full one time program purchases is not in the user's interests. Forcing people to spend so much money on basically cosmetic crap with a subscription only model potentially cuts out a large percentage of semi-pro users. If they can afford to alienate portions of users, more power to them. I know a whole corporate department that dropped all things adobe because of it. I question the adobe is doing fine source of information from adobe.

 

Adobe will not admit troubles. There are alternatives constantly coming online that are low priced or free.

[digitaldog]

Adobe, like almost all software sellers, has only done cosmetic changes for years to market just another upgrade. Going to the cloud and taking away hard copy/full one time program purchases is not in the user's interests. Forcing people to spend so much money on basically cosmetic crap with a subscription only model potentially cuts out a large percentage of semi-pro users. If they can afford to alienate portions of users, more power to them.

And yet, the rate of adoption of their subscription model, the number of increased customers, their stock history since doing so appears to make your argument difficult to accept as anything but just one person's opinion of their product line.

[sigmaalex920]

And yet, the rate of adoption of their subscription model, the number of increased customers, their stock history since doing so appears to make your argument difficult to accept as anything but just one person's opinion of their product line.

Sure, and where does this data come from?

Adobe.

 

When all your workflow for years is saved as adobe files and proprietary file systems, you really think anyone has a choice to just dump all of that? The alternative to losing years of work is 'well, guess I'll suck up over 50 a month... (10 a month gets you practically nothing, no libs, no stock, no storage) And this is fair for loyal users?

 

And their cloud chokes and it's 'oh, we're sorry but all your files aren't recoverable'. Yeah, I want all my work stored on their server. You all can keep their bloated obscene sub costs. The cloud sub service doesn't work profitably for anyone not in a corporate environment and people barely making a living doing this can't really afford such cosmetic 'updates' for hundreds of bucks every other month. Hopefully people save their work offline on a separate drive that isn't synced to the main system.

 

Did I mention nothing in adobe's sub service is owned by you? And like apple, they can own your work as well. Read the fine print with apple and adobe. Stop the service and it all goes away including anything anyone conveniently stored on their cloud.

 

No thanks. Yep, one persons opinion. Isn't everything on these threads basically one persons opinion?

[sigmaalex920]

Sure, and where does this data come from?

Adobe.

 

When all your workflow for years is saved as adobe files and proprietary file systems, you really think anyone has a choice to just dump all of that? The alternative to losing years of work is 'well, guess I'll suck up over 50 a month... (10 a month gets you practically nothing, no libs, no stock, no storage) And this is fair for loyal users?

 

And their cloud chokes and it's 'oh, we're sorry but all your files aren't recoverable'. Yeah, I want all my work stored on their server. You all can keep their bloated obscene sub costs. The cloud sub service doesn't work profitably for anyone not in a corporate environment and people barely making a living doing this can't really afford such cosmetic 'updates' for hundreds of bucks every other month. Hopefully people save their work offline on a separate drive that isn't synced to the main system.

 

Did I mention nothing in adobe's sub service is owned by you? And like apple, they can own your work as well. Read the fine print with apple and adobe. Stop the service and it all goes away including anything anyone conveniently stored on their cloud.

 

No thanks. Yep, one persons opinion. Isn't everything on these threads basically one persons opinion?

Forgot this... but gee if you backed up to adobe cloud, maybe some of your stuff could be recovered. If they can't get updates right and admit it properly, why should anyone really trust their server cloud, that they want you to pay for and trust all your work to? I'm sure other cloud based services have their horror stories as well, but we're talking about adobe and not any other service. And this was on peoples personal devices. Yikes.

 

Adobe Lightroom iOS update permanently deleted users’ photos

 

Also interesting, the update only bogged people not paying for the sub or synced with adobe. So, I guess, use a bootlegged copy, you get da boot. That's actually nothing new.

 

Update, 4:55PM ET: Adobe has posted a few more details on a support page for Lightroom for mobile 5.4.0 for iPadOS and iOS. It reiterates that the bug “affected customers using Lightroom mobile without a subscription to the Adobe cloud. It also affected Lightroom cloud customers with photos and presets that had not yet synced to the Adobe cloud.”

Edited September 14, 2020 by sigmaalex920

[digitaldog]

Sure, and where does this data come from?

Adobe.

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” -Søren Kierkegaard

[digitaldog]

Excuse my ignorance in this but if one used LR for iOS without a cloud subscription were photos deleted from the iOS device?

 

(I have a subscription and lost nothing- AFAICR )

You’ll never, ever, lose anything that you back up. Anything that you do not back up can be lost anywhere.

[digitaldog]

If you are in the field and the only images you have are on the camera card and something happens to the card, you're hosed.

If you copy those images to the desktop drive, format that card and something happens to the images on the desktop drive, you're hosed.

If you copy anything you value to one location and something happens to that valuable data, then you're hosed.

Some users uploaded images on Adobe's cloud and didn't have back ups. Adobe's cloud, like the possibility for any cloud system or local drive failed. They lost those images. Had they backed up the data, ideally in multiple locations and drives, this wouldn't be an issue whatsoever.

I have ALL my data in the cloud. And clones spread across at least three drives (a set in a fire proof safe). The likelihood all my data will be lost is low. There still is the possibility of nuclear war or our sun exploding but otherwise, I feel my valuable data is pretty safe otherwise.

[sigmaalex920]

Excuse my ignorance in this but if one used LR for iOS without a cloud subscription were photos deleted from the iOS device?

 

(I have a subscription and lost nothing- AFAICR )

Try that link in my post. Don't go to adobe site while online until you back up to some other media. Supposedly they corrected that previous problem. Never rely on that but back up now. Then it will be safe to go to the cloud and let them do their thing. If they corrupt your program, they'll just re download it.

[sigmaalex920]

You’ll never, ever, lose anything that you back up. Anything that you do not back up can be lost anywhere.

Unless you back up to another cloud.

[digitaldog]

Unless you back up to another cloud.

That's absurd FUD. ANY media, media uploaded to the cloud or otherwise can fail. If you follow a proper backup schema, you can't lose any data from one media going down from the cloud backup or otherwise. Make multiple backup's in differing locations (hence one or more to a cloud based backup).

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." --Mark Twain

[digitaldog]

When all your workflow for years is saved as adobe files and proprietary file systems, you really think anyone has a choice to just dump all of that?

More FUD.

Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Elements; all support openly documented non proprietary data files (TIFF, JPEG, DNG).

Assuming you actually own, shoot and capture raw data, those are proprietary files.

And their cloud chokes and it's 'oh, we're sorry but all your files aren't recoverable'.

No Adobe customers have to use their cloud for anything if they don't wish to. I for one do not use it whatsoever. Anyone who uses their cloud or other clouds should backup their data; period.

Did I mention nothing in adobe's sub service is owned by you?

Sub service? Read the EULA; whatever you agree to is your burden. If you don't like the conditions, don't click OK and use the product; no one puts a gun to your head to agree to their terms.

No thanks. Yep, one persons opinion. Isn't everything on these threads basically one persons opinion?

Fact: Millions of users subscribe to Adobe product line.

Fact: Their stock has gone up massively since introduction of subscription and no, this fact isn't only coming directly from Adobe, its a fully transparent fact directly from Nasdaq.

http://digitaldog.net/files/AdobeStock.jpg

Fact: If you don't like Adobe products, you are free not to use them while millions of others will do so at their own choice.

Opinions are fine, you are entitled to have one but when opinions are not based on facts and mostly FUD, as outlined, your comments and opinion may not be taken seriously.

[sigmaalex920]

If you are in the field and the only images you have are on the camera card and something happens to the card, you're hosed.

If you copy those images to the desktop drive, format that card and something happens to the images on the desktop drive, you're hosed.

If you copy anything you value to one location and something happens to that valuable data, then you're hosed.

Some users uploaded images on Adobe's cloud and didn't have back ups. Adobe's cloud, like the possibility for any cloud system or local drive failed. They lost those images. Had they backed up the data, ideally in multiple locations and drives, this wouldn't be an issue whatsoever.

I have ALL my data in the cloud. And clones spread across at least three drives (a set in a fire proof safe). The likelihood all my data will be lost is low. There still is the possibility of nuclear war or our sun exploding but otherwise, I feel my valuable data is pretty safe otherwise.

You are absolutely correct about backing everything up asap all the time. However, with the adobe event, their update overwrote/deleted data on users personal devices, not from adobe cloud. Had they did what you've suggested other than adobe, or even used adobe cloud, they would have not lost the data. Adobe missqued somehow by how the software updated itself on the installed package on peoples devices. The question has been, how did this update package get by the adobe people?

 

No matter what software one uses, backup backup backup.

 

Stay safe.

[sigmaalex920]

which photo editor do you use?

Maybe not a photo editor per se, but XnViewMP for free has been pretty impressive lately.

[digitaldog]

You are absolutely correct about backing everything up asap all the time. However, with the adobe event, their update overwrote/deleted data on users personal devices, not from adobe cloud.

After updating to Lightroom version 5.4 on iOS and iPadOS, numerous users found that photos and editing presets that had not yet been synced to the cloud were missing.

That data came from where and why wasn't it updated? IF the photo's were taken on iOS, it could easily and automatically been backed up to iCloud. Or the users could, as they should have, backed up the data which again, iOS supports. Is Adobe at fault for this bug? Yes of course. Are users supposed to blindly accept that their data, from Adobe or otherwise is safe and shouldn't be backed up ASAP (or as it can be, automatically)? No, they are not without responsibility for their data.

This is the issue and official reply from Adobe:

'We are aware that some customers who updated to Lightroom 5.4.0 on iPhone and iPad may be missing photos and presets that were not synced to the Lightroom cloud.

A new version of Lightroom mobile (5.4.1) for iOS and iPad OS has now been released that prevents this issue from affecting additional customers.

Installing version 5.4.1 will not restore missing photos or presets for customers affected by the problem introduced in 5.4.0.

 

So again, how did the images arrive on iPhone and iPad in the first place? If from the desktop, there should be no loss and of course, anyone who didn't backup such data ASAP again, has some responsibility for their data.

My desktop presets for LR/ACR are on no less than three local HD's and two clouds. But I'm a belt and suspenders kind of computer user when it comes to backing up data.

[digitaldog]

Fyi, In my routine, I transfer photos from my sd card to my ipad via the sd-lightning adapter, process them and then sync with the adobe cloud via Lightroom ios. It doesn’t take long as my uploads are small (~500kb) per file.

All my lightroom imports are stored locally as well as in the cloud.

And, you have a ”back up”, the camera card until you format it at which time you don't; so if any important data is in only one location, back it up ASAP.

[paddler4]

Back up twice ALWAYS, and make sure that the two backups are not in the same place. If you don't, and you lose something--because you make a mistake, because someone else makes a mistake, or because equipment fails--you've been (repeatedly) forewarned. This is not an Adobe issue, it's basic good practice for handling data.

[sigmaalex920]

I apologize to the room for pulling the thread off topic. Adobe transgressions and backup strategies are not the topic of the thread.

I should have made a new thread if I wanted to complain about adobe.

Be safe everyone.

[AlanKlein]

Thinking about my film days, I just put the prints and negative in a shoe box up in the top of a clothes closet. No one ever thought about losing them, well at least other than pros I suppose. I never looked a them again after making photo albums. Slides went into slide trays; also not backed up. Now that we have about 100 times more digital pictures than we ever took before, suddenly we're all worried about losing all these rejects and start backing them up in clouds and drives. :)

[digitaldog]

If you don't care about the archives of your images, fine. A massive advantage of digital images and data IS the ability to make perfect copies, easily, and protect that data. Edited September 14, 2020 by digitaldog